EUROPEAN COMMISSION - EUROSTAT
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods
of business-related Statistics
2010 project on statistical units
n° 30121.2010.005 - 2010.405
Outline on identification and evaluation of
inconsistencies in regulations for business related
statistics
Svetlana Jesiļevska – CSB (Latvia)
____________________________________________________________
ESSnet on Consistency – Project on Statistical Units – Workshop Riga 2012
Riga – 19th and 20th June 2012
1
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Introduction
Identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business
related statistics falls under objective (b) of the WP1 ’Statistical units’ of the
Project ‘ESSnet on consistency of concepts and methods of business-related
statistics’ (in short: ESSnet on Consistency): Identification and evaluation of
inconsistencies.
2
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Statistical domains
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Structural Business Statistics
Short-Term Statistics
Prodcom
Foreign-Affiliates Statistics
Tourism Statistics
Energy Statistics
Environment Statistics (Waste Statistics; Environmental expenditure)
Statistics on Information and Communication Technology
External Trade Statistics
Research and Development
Employment statistics (Labour Force Survey; Structure of Earnings Survey/Labour
Cost Survey; Job Vacancy Statistics; Labour Cost Index)
Vocational Training Statistics
Balance of Payments and Foreign Direct Investment
National Accounts
3
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
The Statistical Unit Regulation (the Council Regulation
(EEC) No 696/93)
The Annex of the Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 of 15 March 1993 on the
statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system distinguishes
and defines eight statistical units:
A. the enterprise;
B. the institutional unit;
C. the enterprise group;
D. the kind-of-activity unit (KAU);
E. the unit of homogeneous production (UHP);
F. the local unit;
G. the local kind-of-activity unit (local KAU);
H. the local unit of homogeneous production (local UHP).
4
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
… The Statistical Unit Regulation … continued …
The use of common definitions of statistical units is a prerequisite to arrive at an
integrated statistical information system.
Not all statistics are based on the Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 on the statistical
units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community (the
Statistical Unit Regulation).
Some statistical units are defined in other regulations and some are even not defined in
any legal act.
5
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Percentage of statistical domains
according to type of statistical unit
6
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Types of statistical units
Units as defined in Regulation No 696/93, clear reference to Regulation No 696/93
Examples of Regulations with this approach:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Structural Business Statistics
Short-Term Statistics
Sructure of Earnings Survey/Labour Cost Survey
Prodcom
Tourism
Waste Statistics
Vocational Training Statistics
Statistics on Information and Communication technology
Foreign-Affiliates Statistics
Environmental expenditure
7
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
… Types of statistical units… continued …
Units according to Regulation No 696/93, but exceptions and rather weak link to
Regulation No 696/93
Examples of Regulations with this approach:
•
Research and Development
•
Innovation
•
Energy Statistics
Well defined specific units, without reference to Regulation 696/93 or with a very
indirect reference
Examples of Regulations with this approach:
•
External Trade – Intrastat; Extrastat
•
Balance of Payments
•
Foreign Direct Investment Statistics
•
National Accounts
8
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
… Types of statistical units… continued …
Undefined units
Examples of Regulations with this approach:
•
Job Vacancy Statistics
The compilation of statistics shall be based on business units, but no definition is given and any
reference to Regulation No 696/93 is also missing.
•
Labour Cost Index
Regulation No 696/93 is quoted but there are no provisions which of the units have to be used.
•
Labour Force Survey
The individual person is the central statistical unit, regardless of whether the
sampling unit is an individual or a household. Information usually has to be
collected for all individuals of the household.
9
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Statistical units in different statistical domains
‘Enteprise’ is the statistical unit in
Business Register
Structural Business Statistics
Short-Term Statistics
Foreign-Affiliates Statistics
Energy Statistics
Environmental expenditure
Prodcom
Statistics on Information and Communication technology
Research and Development
Innovation
Structure of Earnings Survey/ Labour Cost Survey
Vocational training
10
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
…Statistical units in different statistical domains… continued …
‘Local unit’ is the statistical unit in
Business Register
Structural Business Statistics
Tourism
Foreign-Affiliates Statistics
Structure of Earnings Survey/ Labour Cost Survey
Waste Statistics
11
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
…Statistical units in different statistical domains… continued …
‘Kind-of-activity unit’ is the statistical unit in
Structural Business Statistics
Waste Statistics
Short-Term Statistics
‘Local kind-of-activity unit’ is the statistical unit in
Tourism
National Accounts
12
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
…Statistical units in different statistical domains… continued …
Other statistical units
Statistical domain
Statistical unit
Business Register
‘Enterprise Group’
Structural Business Statistics
‘business’ and ‘branch’ in Module V (Insurance); ‘credit
institutions’ and ‘branches’ in Module VI (Credit
institutions)
Statistics on External Trade
‘statistical unit’ means the basic observation unit,
namely a natural person, a household, an economic
operator and other undertakings referred to by the
data (Regulation (EC) No 223/2009)
Job Vacancy Statistics
‘business unit’
National Accounts
‘Institutional units’
Balance of Payments and Foreign Direct Investment
‘Institutional units’
Labour Force Statistics
‘individual’ or ‘household’
Labour Cost Index
the LCI shall represent all the statistical units as
defined in Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93
(Regulation (EC) No 450/2003)
13
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009
According to the Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11
March 2009 on European statistics, Article 12 ‘Statistical quality’: To guarantee the quality of results,
European statistics shall be developed, produced and disseminated on the basis of uniform standards
and of harmonised methods. In this respect, the following quality criteria shall apply:
(a) ‘relevance’;
(b) ‘accuracy’;
(c) ‘timeliness’;
(d) ‘punctuality’;
(e) ‘accessibility’ and ‘clarity’;
(f) ‘comparability’;
(g) ‘coherence’.
14
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Clusters of survey-based statistics
• Cluster A: Economic Units/ Activity oriented Statistics
The statistics usually address enterprises as respondents; the main variables primarily
capture characteristics of the economic activities of these economic agents.
The following statistical domains belong to this group:
Structural Business Statistics and Business Demography; Short-Term Statistics (STS);
Some of the variables covered by STS such as prices are rather commodity oriented and
do not fit well into the cluster of activity oriented statistics; FATS; Tourism; Environmental
expenditure; Statistics on Information and Communication Technology – Enterprises and
the information society); Research and Development; Structure of Earnings Survey /
Labour cost survey; Job Vacancy Statistics; Labour Cost Index; Vocational Training
Statistics; FDI/International Trade in Services.
15
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
…Clusters of survey-based statistics… continued…
• Cluster B: Person/ Household oriented Statistics
These statistics focus on persons and households as respondents and units of
observation.
The following statistical domains belong to this group:
Tourism - Participation in tourism; Tourism – Data on trips; Statistics on Information and
Communication Technology - Individuals, households and the information society;
Labour Force Survey; Structure of Earnings Survey (to some extent, although also
classified under Cluster A).
• Cluster C: Commodity oriented Statistics
The scope of these statistics is always defined with reference to certain commodities.
The following statistical domains belong to this group:
Prodcom; Energy Statistics; Waste Statistics; External Trade.
16
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
To sum up…
•
The legal acts and manuals governing the system of business-related statistics
themselves belong to very different age groups.
•
Great amount of legal acts and manuals has been reviewed. A comparison of all
these legal acts and manuals on a bilateral basis is almost impossible.
•
A lack of consistency with respect to the underlying statistical units will have serious
consequences. The use of administrative data based on different statistical units than
the units as laid down in the legal act will constrain the comparability between
statistical results from different statistical domains.
17
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
… To sum up… continued …
•
The main inconsistency must be seen in the different statistical units on which the closely related
projects are based.
•
A number of statistical projects are not based on statistical units according to the Regulation No
696/93.
•
The Regulation No 177/2008 does not require that all the statistical units distinguished in
Regulation No 696/93 have to be included in the business registers for statistical purposes.
•
There is an additional need for revising the Statistical Unit Regulation and the statistical units used
due to changes.
18
ESSnet on Consistency of Concepts and Methods of business-related Statistics. WP1 Statistical units
Outline on identification and evaluation of inconsistencies in regulations for business related statistics
Thanks for your attention!
19